(Photo: fritz-kola)
Dusseldorf When Mirco Wolf Wiegert and his buddy Lorenz Hampl founded Fritz-Kola as students in 2003, they had three things: 7,000 euros from their canceled home savings contracts, an old VW bus and a used Golf.
Today – a good 18 years and a lot of “bullshit” later – the self-proclaimed Coca-Cola attacker is a “real company”, as Wiegert says, with an estimated turnover of around 50 million euros in 2019 and 280 “Fritzen”, that is employees. However, without Hampl, who left Fritz-Kola in 2016, which Wiegert “physically, psychologically and also financially” pushed to his limits.
The separation from his co-founder and friend was an even bigger crisis than Corona for the 46-year-old and the company, he says after almost two years of the pandemic. The main customers of Fritz-Kola are restaurateurs and major event organizers. In March 2020, with the first lockdown, sales collapsed by 80 percent almost overnight.
All in all, however, Fritz-Kola “got through well”, summarizes Wiegert in the sixth episode of Handelsblatt Rethink Work. The home office, even if it works, gives him problems. The togetherness, especially between the employees who sell Kola outside and those in the office, is lost a bit because there is no chance encounter, no chat. “I’m still alienating the New Normal. I think we’re deluding ourselves a bit here.”
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New colleagues only appear virtually, contact with a number of people is dwindling and many are feeling overwhelmed at home, writes Wiegert in his book “Fritz versus Goliath”, which was published last September. It is about the history and rise of Fritz-Kola, but also about his experiences and crises as an entrepreneur.
According to Wiegert, the book is also a kind of start-up primer, his inspiration for founders. That’s why he talks a lot about mistakes, because “it’s okay if you mess up”. That’s part of being an entrepreneur – and it doesn’t just affect the business.
“In the early days, I just managed badly,” Wiegert openly admits. For example, the idea of developing a manual on internal processes, throwing it on the wall with a projector and having employees read it out loud was “totally silly”. “Today we do it better.”
More: You can hear the previous episode of Handelsblatt Rethink Work here